Games of the Heart
by Inky-Paws
Summary: No matter what time, or what place, I will always love you. No matter where or when you will always be my sister.


Hey! I hope you enjoy this! My apologies in advance for bad grammar/bad spelling.

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 **Games of the Heart**

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My grandfather used to say that memories were beautiful miracles that could take us to magical places. That they were to be treasured, no matter how painful or costly. I remember my younger self not understanding that, pondering over why he would say something like that, so serious. I'd always ask him that, questioningly, and he'd always bend down and ruffle my hair, eyes always singing, and that unspoken, silent message only communicated through his glittering eyes. _"Someday, you'll understand when you're older."_

And I later did. I still do. Memories take me back to Holy Roman Empire. Grandpa Rome, and all the ancients long gone. But most importantly, They take me back to _her._ My best friend, my "little sister", Celestina Ciel Vargas.

They take me back to that day, all those years ago. It was soon after Grandpa Rome had adopted me. I was feeling particularly down that day, because we had received word of _another_ war, and now Grandpa Rome had to fight. I had blearily stumbled up the tallest mountain in sight, Mount Vesuvius, thinking that the higher I was, the harder it would be for the sadness to touch me, huffing and puffing all the way up. I was no more than half of the way up when I heard the song. It was a beautiful, enchanting, haunting melody, telling a story of hardship, sadness, but the long-awaited happiness that would arouse my spirits and truly awaken me. It was the story od a child who was not quite a child, traveling along a long and dreary path, the ending imminent. Hearing that tune intrigued me. It was clearly coming from the top of the mountain, but who was singing it? Who would even have the lung capacity to sing a song that loudly. So I ran. All the way to the top.

By the time I made my way to the top of the mountain, I was panting and the song was reaching its end, But that didn't matter. I had found its creator. She was a child, looking slightly younger than me, with her youthful face devoid of the wrinkles of time, sorrow, and age. As she turned to face my general direction, beautiful, rosy, silvery-golden curls spilled down, framing her pale freckled face, and I backed up with a start when her eyes opened, awakening from their tune. Wide, heterochromatic eyes stared out at the clear-blue sky, one deep violet and the other a golden, startling amber. The only things that marred her innocent, childlike disposition were the black and blue hand shaped bruises that patterned her neck, traveling down her neck into the neck of her dress and a thin, faint, still healing scar that ran along her left cheekbone down to her bottom lip that marked her out as someone not to be underestimated. As her eyes travelled downward I noticed a carved, almond-shaped lute in her left hand, possessing an air that suggested that she'd played the instrument for a long time. As her eyes drifted further downward to meet mine, she backed up with a startled yelp. After catching herself, she stared down at me spellbound, almost as if she had never seen another child before. But that's impossible, right? Certainly no child could go through countless years of their life never seeing another child looking there age, right? She stared spellbound for a few more seconds that stretched out into minutes before a smile split against her lips. "Hello!"

Celestina. Meaning the song of the stars, or simply celestial. Ciel. Meaning light, sky, or star, depending on how you translate t. Her names, and their meanings, embodied her as a whole. Her eyes, always glittering, shining, extending as far as to reach the unreachable heights, were impossible to subdue and always seemed to dance across the sky. She almost seemed ethereal, like an angel that fell from heaven, or to put more simply, a demon that crawled out of the depths of hell. Her life song told of stories untold, and sang of a world where she didn't have to kill and the demons of her childhood didn't constantly chase her around on a daily basis. As she grew older, I learned more about her. She was a born huntress, the top of her class, and she was just as dangerous as she was beautiful. Unpredictable like a bouncing glass ball filled with greek fire, ready to break and explode at any given time or place. I remember rushing as soon as he returned home to tell Grandpa Rome about my new friend, my new self-appointed "little sister", and the raising alarm in his eyes as I told him about her. When I asked why he looked so alarmed, I got no clear answer. Lovino, on the other hand, gave me a clear enough answer. He didn't give me much to go on, but he gave me enough. She was genetically engineered for battle, the reason for her unnatural hair and eye colorings. The locals referred to her as "demon spawn" or simply "demon bitch". She was born for no other singular purpose except to wage war. And like the star's song she was named for, she burned as brightly as a meteor ready to crash and burn at any time.

And yet, in spite of the blatant warnings warning me away from her, the fact that we were the weird ones, the ones that simply didn't ft in, brought us closer together. Even Lovino, disagreeable as he was, became quite good friends with her. We soon learned about her love of games. In a game, she explained, you could manipulate the pieces so they work the way you want, and everything can go according to plan. Hide-and-seek was her favorite, so we played it often. Celestina would normally win, normally by hiding in some obscure, hard-to-find, hiding did we know that the main reason for her unnatural talent at hiding was all the time she spent hiding from her "caretakers" and "teachers". She never could win with them, but she could win with us.

And she grew older. But Lovino and I, we didn't. At least not by much. But even then, she'd refer to us as her big brothers. She'd post out that while physically, she might look older, technically, Lovino and I were older than she'd ever be. She'd never get jealous, even when we'd point out that we'd never die unless our countries died while she faced death on a daily basis. She'd always laugh at that. We became closer. She revealed that she once had four little sisters, Nova, Galaxia, Stella, and Luna, but while she'd survived the genetic mutations that she was bred to have, they didn't. She said that we reminded her of them, and if they had survived, she thought that they would have grown to be like us. She frequently said that every time she fought she fought for them, in their memory. She had undergone so much pain and yet she was never better. At least on on the outside. Because Lovino and I had both seen her cry at their gravestones. We had both seen her smoldering rage that only grew over time and glowed so darkly whenever she fought. We both had seen the growing embers of barely concealed hate whenever she looked at the people who made her to be the monster that she was. Over time, she progressively became more violent, less righteous with her kills, and yet, so much more human. Both Lovino and I had held her while she had cried on our shoulders every time she was forced to take a human life and over the monster that she had become.

That all changed at her last battle. Lovino and I had both fought alongside her, fought to defend our homeland. And what happened then is what made me so cautious about the fights I pick and is what made me hate fighting so much. In a moment of carelessness, I turned my back to an enemy and they seized the opportunity and fired three arrows at my heart. Celestina saw them coming and let them hit her instead, her weight knocking me down. They pierced her armor, just below her ribcage. But that wasn't what killed her. What later killed her was the sword that cleaved right the already weakened armor and cleaved a hole in her side. Everything after that is just a blood-filled daze. I was later told that upon seeing my dying friend, my "little sister" lying there, hurt, both Lovino and I had snapped and wiped out most of the enemy's invading forces and forced them into a permanent retreat. I had collapsed then, and woke up a few hours later.

When I woke up a few hours later, I was told that Celestina had survived but would not live for much longer and was asking for me. I immediately bolted to her room and plopped down but her side, alongside Lovino, who had awoken a few hours prior. Celestina smiled through the pain, and told us how proud she was of us, how much she loved us, and how not to be sad. I interrupted her then, yelling and screaming and begging her to tell me how we were supposed to not be sad _when our sister is dying, there's nothing we can do about it, to at least try to show some goddamned emotion, and how she could be so goddamn calm. Did she honestly want to die?_ She stared at me in shock, because I never swore, that normally was Lovino's job, and when she looked at Lovino to see if she had heard wrong, only to find him nodding in agreement. To both of our surprise, she started sobbing, choking on her own words. Of course she didn't want to die. Of course she was sad. She just don't see the point in complaining when she'd die anyway and all it would do is bring us more sadness. She didn't want to die and be transported into some lifeless and meaningless reality where we weren't there. She didn't want to be reincarnated into some shitty reality where she'd be all alone again, with no one to care about her well-being. So we swore. We swore that no matter when, where, or by what means, we'd find her in her next life so she wouldn't be lonely. That we'd never forget herThat we'd find her in her next life and we'd play hide-and-seek again. And at that, her sobbing ceased, and she smiled the biggest, brightest smile that we'd ever seen from her, and died, leaving us behind with her words.

 _I love you, Feliciano, Lovino. I love both of you with all of my heart and soul. I swear that even in my next life, I'll never forget you I promise that if you ever need me, I'll be there. I swear that I'll serve you, and if you're lost, I'll show you both the light, like you showed me. I love you both so, so, so, very much. After all, I am your little sister, right?_

Life after that seemed to move sickly slow and sweet, like syrup from a bottle. It seemed more precious, and life without Celestina seemed to move slower. She wasn't reincarnated often, but when she was, it was always when we needed her the most. So far she had kept to her promise, whenever we had found her in her next life, she had always remembered us as her big brothers. We always knew when she was here, because life had always seemed to accelerate by the mile when she was. No matter how long it would take, Lovino and I would always wait for her. Always and forever. And in the meantime, we contented ourselves with our memories of her. But life was continually moving slower. We had started wondering if maybe her soul was finally at rest, if it had finally found peace. Her last reincarnation was in 1861 when she was reincarnated to help Lovino and I unify Northern and Southern Italy. She had died soon after, having served her purpose in that lifetime. That was so long ago, and yet Lovino and I could immediately tell when life started moving faster, picking up speed, like she was here again, and about to serve some kind of purpose in our world. Our eyes immediately snapped up and met across the room their unspoken message communicating volumes, more than any words could have communicated. We immediately dropped our stuff and dashed out of the World Meeting hall, despite the protests of the other personifications around us that we had a meeting to attend. We ran.

As we exited the World Meeting Hall, Ww stopped outside to try to pin down her presence. It took about twenty second before Lovino was able to pin it down and yelled, "Come on!" dragging me along with him, struggling to catch up. We take a left, and then another left, and then a right, and then another left before we catch sight of her in the throng of people. She looks the same as ever, what with her rosy slivery-golden curly hair constantly spilling everywhere, and the strange looks she gets from her heterochromatic violet and amber eyes. As we try to push through the throng of people, she looks back at us, ad a laughing smirk crosses her face, filled with mischief and laughter, eyes sparkling brighter than ever, before she disappears in the mass of people. _Find me if you can. But I'll warn you, I never lose._ "Loving, she's toying with us." I say to my brother. "She's testing us." Lovino looks back up at me, a knowing smirk dancing across his face. "Yes, she most certainly is. Now, shall we indulge the crafty bitch?" I laugh "We won't lose her this time. Never again" Eyes meeting with understanding knowledge, we glance around. What's the most obscenely annoying, darkest, and dingiest place to hide in, where most people will ever in their right minds hide in. "The alleyway." We chime and silently communicating the plan, we split off. Lovino takes the back end of the alleyway, i take the closest end. Upon close inspection, there's no-one near, but I know my sister. She'll be hiding in the most entertaining spot possible. Lovino comes to meet me at we both look up. And there she is, perched on some blacked-out window like a cat on a clothes line, eyes laughing at us, her arms crossed over her chest. As she jumps down to land in between us, her eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, and she leans against a dark and dirty wall, a happy smile playing against her lips. "You pass the test. Wanna play a game?"

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A/N: Hey! Thanks for spending the time to read this! Apologies for bad grammar/spelling, I accidentally lost a portion of this story file because I accidentally deleted it, so some of it may seem a little out of place because I wrote it at different times and I was in a rush to finish this before I forgot what I had already written. So, to explain my oc a bit more, Celestina as a child was born with certain genetic mutations such as, for example, heterochromia with purple and amber eyes. Seeing this and how she was different, scientists believed that this made her special and built for battle so they tried to recreate children like her, those experiments being her little siblings, but they didn't survive. So the scientists had to deal with what they had and make do with Celestina, whom they trained to be a warrior. Sorry if this seems a little out of place for the main time period she was born in, I tried to make it fit the best I could. Celestina is actually an oc that I've spent a lot of time dreaming up, so you may see other appearances by her in other fanfictions. Anyway, I hope you liked this!

Ciao!


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